The Strange Girls once lived next door to me, or, more accurately, in front of me, as my house was on a rear section, up in Dunedin’s City Rise. This would have been somewhere around the turn of the millennium. At that stage I didn’t yet know of the band or their music; in fact I didn’t know them at all, being at that point in my life something of a murine recluse. No, what marked these neighbours most for me was the unique laugh of one of them. It was the most distinctive laugh I have ever heard, almost certainly the loudest. Like a tolling church bell, it would billow out over the entire neighbourhood, a ballooning cloud of murunga, a snowballing magic spell. I swear you would have been able to hear it in the next suburb. These guys seemed to spend a lot of time out in their backyard—every hour or two—and they laughed a lot, or this particular guy did, so it was a frequent and welcome blessing, this infectious gift to the world. For me in my lost state behind the untamed hedge it was soft rain from Ranginui. Honestly, I loved that guy before I’d even met him.

As I was later to find out, the laughter belonged to Kaaterama Morehu, aka Motty. His partners in crime were Clayton Noone and Jon Paul Arcus. Jon and Motty had been at school together, and Motty had often joined in with Clayton and Jon’s previous band, Armpit, a noise outfit they started in the 90’s. Reassembling in Dunedin later in that decade, by which time Motty and Jon were regularly jamming, (with Clayton supplying ‘cowboy acoustic’ songs to keep up the inspiration), the three eventually decided to try a more straight-up, song-based approach and thus was formed The Strange Girls, named for a roving troupe of young outlier Dunedin women sometimes referred to in the third person by that name.

A band history unfolded, with all the usual: unforgettable gigs; releases on small, unknown labels; pointless, destructive excess. Roles shifted and evolved. It was 2010 when the group, now trimmed down to just Motty and Clayton, (Jon having moved back north), sat down and decided to make something a little more considered and enduring. But although the band itself continued to go from strength to strength, things didn’t quite pan out on the recording front.

Eventually, however, the pair tried again, and the result of those sessions was Beset, the album you now hold in your hands.

Without abandoning their roots in noise and soft-edged lo-fi attitude, the pair managed to contrive on this second attempt an achingly lovely collection of stripped back songs of sparing instrumentation and understated, sometimes barely even whispered vocals: pain, heartbreak and humble, hard-won wisdom distilled down to pure, numinous beauty.

Here is Clayton:
“…in 2017 I think Stefan [of Pumice] sent me a message asking me if it was ok for Motty to get in touch, I said of course & he came round to my house with his guitar because he had a tale to tell me & a new song, so we were back on my porch in South Dunedin & we were back into it again. For the next couple years we were recording again & played a couple great gigs. We released a 4 song EP on Independent Women Records & had an offer to make an LP for Soft Abuse. Motty because of his health moved back up to Auckland to be closer to his family & our last conversation was on my birthday where we were sharing guitar riffs over the phone telling each other how wonderful we both were. Motty died a week or so later.”


Like Motty’s munificent laughter, Beset is murunga, a gentle puff of angel dust, a restorative panacea. Clearly it also stands as a memorial to he rakau nui o te waahi waiata o Ōtepoti. When you have finished listening, turn the record over, and play it again. Repeat and keep repeating until you no longer know which side you are on. Get lost in there. Because here are 40 minutes of absolute timeless enchantment. 

All instruments by Kaaterama Morehu & Clayton Noone. Recorded 2010, Otakou & South Dunedin.

Mixed and mastered by Forbes Williams.